Love in A Vat of Wine
by VerelLupin
Summary: A few precious moments seal Audrey's fate as she contemplates what Edward is truly and what role he will play in her life. Sequel to Love in a Paper Cup.


I didn't mean to write a sequel but I had to write her point of view. Anyway my ipod drabble should be up this week and then I will write a full after the movie story.

As usual the movie dialogue belongs to not me.

Enjoy...

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"Come on Ed, we have to go." Elvis says.

"I can't." He replies unable to look at her.

"They'll be here soon," she counters.

"The sun is about to come up, we may never get another chance to set up this experiment again…" This time he looks directly at her. "I have to do it."

Audrey feels a chill sweep down her spine at his statement. "That thing could kill you."

**'****You don't owe me, Edward. You don't owe them your life.'** She wants to say it but she holds her tongue instead waiting for an answer she already knows. An answer she glimpses in his eyes when they hear the terrified girl on the wakie talkie.

"I'm already dead."

Elvis looks between them and Audrey knows which way he will go. He doesn't fully trust Edward and he loves her like a daughter.

"Fuck it, I do love a good barbecue."

She takes off her jacket and throws down her purse. "If you feel you need to do this, then I will be here to help you."

He sorta smiles and she can't help but think that he looks so much more handsome, so much less burdened, that he is nothing like the monster he thinks he is.

They set up the supplies inside the vat while Elvis cuts open another hatch that can be manually lifted to keep the amount of sunlight steady.

He removes his shirt and she places the electrodes on it. "You sure you're ready to do this?" **'What if you don't survive?'**

"Yeah, what could go wrong?" **'Would you really care?'**

She looks up and keeps her hand on his chest. **'I would, I do.' **Its silent beneath it, there's no pulse. Nothing to signify that he is alive in anyway but that for some reason does not disturb her. Him dying a second time does.

"You feel so warm." He cups her face and she rests her cheek against his palm. His hand slides down and she steps out and sits down at the desk as Elvis pops back in.

"Well they'll be here in 10 to 15. Ready doc?" Elvis wraps the drenched blanket around Edward.

"Ready."

"Let's do it Aud!"

Audrey looks at the vitals monitor takes a deep breath and shouts back, "on my count, 3…2…1."

She will never look at the sun in the same light again. His ragged screams and the acrid smell of burning flesh coats the air and she shuts her eyes to keep the horrified tears shut away.

It's too difficult to keep that vent closed with his pain filling her ears. She smacks down on the air vent controls and the sounds he's making fade to a whimper.

"Ed?"

"I'm alright," Edward shouts, it reassures her. Though his voice is much weaker than she had hoped to hear, the amount of sunlight that filtered through would only increase from this point on. It will only get worse.

She wonders when it was she began to fall for him. It could have been in the car when she felt his eyes boring into the side of her neck or when he wished the rest of the team good luck or maybe it was when he saved them and pulled the bolt through his wrist with an annoyed look.

He scares her.

He doesn't have that deep menacing allure that most male vampires carry with them like a second skin but his intensity is obvious in everything he does. He seems broken yet has the strength to endure the flame kissed touch of the sun, all in hope for the chance of a cure.

A cure that can kill him, a cure that could kill any last chance with someone that understands her and doesn't see her a leader but a woman. She fears for him, fears him because he can hurt her in ways that are worse than being bitten.

Her hesitation is obvious and Elvis is compelled to remind her that this experiment means more than their lives, but he still placates her. "He's alright. Aud."

"Lets do it again," Edward shouts raggedly. Audrey rises from her seat to what...**'convince him he doesn't have to.' **She is halted in her tracks, "Again!"

"3…2…1… now." Audrey just counts down quickly, anything to keep her mind from dwelling on what she's doing, to keep from soaking her own clothing and dousing his flames with her frail human body.

The machine that would have been seen as a sign of a blessing is now horrible in her eyes. Its struggles to recognize him for what he truly is, forcing him to undergo more and more time under the gaze of the fiery sun. A spike of green shoots up on its monitor but dashes her hope that this ordeal is over when it subsides again. She hits the air vent a second time, tears still managing to escape regardless of how tightly she closes her eyes.

Asking for his help has seemed like a good idea, this had been a good idea before she had known him. It had been a good idea when she hadn't seen him swallow her blood with such need and loathing. Before he had asked her if she was afraid to die and why he wished he still could feel that.

"Ed?" She chances a glance and almost becomes ill from what she glimpses. Edward cradled against Elvis.

His face healing from the burning while pieces of his back and shoulders fall off him like a snake shedding its skin. She holds onto the table digging her hands into its metal surface. The urge to vomit is repressed and replaced by remorse as Elvis helps the blood doctor to unsteady feet.

"You ok?" Elvis peeks under the shuddering blanket, repeating his inquiry, "you ok?"

No answer is forthcoming and Audrey is ready to slap some sense into both men and tell them to forget the whole frying scenario. "Ed?"

But now, Audrey knows about his brother. She knew that unlike him, Edward was never any good at being a vampire. She knew that he would rather morph into some creature than drink human blood, that her blood had been a forced exception.

"Again,"

She glances at the heart monitor. **'Did it really matter if the stupid line moved? After all he wasn't like any other vampire she had met. He could stay this way. He didn't have to change.'**

"…Again." He repeats hoarsely from within the depths of the Wine Vat.

"He's fine, he's fine!"

This time she is not reassured. Elvis sounds desperate, he sounds sorry.

Elvis pounds on its metal surface, an action to complete Edward's wishes. A none to gentle way to make her count down for a third time. "3…2…1…now!" The latch opens one last time.

**'****This is it. If it doesn't work we stop and hide. We stop this. I can't stand another bout, I can't watch him hurt.'**

The pitch of his screams is different. It's more brutal, it no longer sounds like a person, it resembles an animal that needs to be put out of its misery. The sound reverberates in the cask echoing all around the winery.

**'****Please stop, stop this, we don't have to do this, you don't have to do this.' **

The camera inside shows him engulfed in flames, his body one giant candle burning itself out. Audrey wants to clasp her hands to her ears, anything to just make it stop.

"I can't do this, I can't watch you burn." She apologizes to him and to all humanity for failing them as her hand smashes onto the vent button. It bites painfully into her flesh but this wound is as insignificant as the cut from earlier is now.

Edward's tortured shouts rise in volume and intensity but Elvis doesn't close the flap. His body arches up and down and he flips to his side while Elvis finally drops the flap and holds him down to keep him from swallowing his own tongue.

He finally runs out of fight and collapses to the ground, the blanket spread beneath him. All that matters was to make his suffering stop and she did but he is frighteningly silent and still. Smoke trails upward and into the vent but he does not stir.

Beep…beep…beep… the machine is making noise, very faint. Very fragile.

She chokes back tears, knocking her chair over in a rush to get the door opened.

"Ed…Ed?" Audrey throws the door open praying to God that he not be taken from her like Mark or Charlie was or like Kenneth. The brothers and husband she had been forced to sacrifice in their search for a cure. **'Give me this one. Don't take him. I beg you, don't take him.'**

For a second all she can see is his body, still on the floor, the light washing the insides of the vat in a golden haze temporally distorting everything.

She kneels down and immediately feels Elvis' rough hands on her shoulders gently steering her away from the man that has died a second time, taking her heart with him.

"Audrey…" he whispers it faintly and she bends forward.

"...Ed?" She kneels and touches the face of the very human Edward.

His face is hot, his jaw strong and whiskered. His skin is soft and rough at the same time. He feels so good and better than anything she could have expected.

He looks so confused, so unsure until those eyes look up at her.

The golden shade retreats from his eyes like a shadow from the moon, revealing them to be a startlingly blue. He smiles tiredly and she hugs him gently not wishing to cause him more pain.

"Are you still sure about this?"

"What could go wrong?" he asked tipping his head forward to touch hers.

"You're warm."

"Not as warm as you." Edward replies after she brushes her lips over his.

"We have to hide." Elvis mutters from behind them apologetically.

They rise as one, a couple fated to meet.

She opens one of the full vats allowing Elvis to sink in first with Edward following at a more sedate pace. Audrey slips in quickly closing the door enough to conceal them and to train their crossbows if necessary.

Audrey pulls him as tightly as possible to her, it's difficult with a weapon in hand but so worth it.

"So co…col…cold." His teeth chatter and she does her best not to press her whole body against his lest they both sink.

They hang in the red liquid and the irony of being up to their necks in something that resembles their own condition doesn't escape her. The army moves on and they move out.

Edward dresses carefully, his moments awkward. He revels in the touch of the cotton on his now living skin. His hands rub his eyes and Audrey wonders if he thinks this is a dream.

Elvis nudges her lightly, "stop looking and just take the boy out."

Audrey blushes but nods in agreement. She gently pushes him toward the opening of the winery. "Go feel the sun."

He steps out and she stands in the shadows waiting. He turns seeming to beckon her forward. Audrey leaves the safety of the doorway, observing the noonday sun shinning brightly overhead. Audrey entwines her fingers with his, enjoying his large hand enveloping her much smaller one.

Edward feels the tug and looks down and then to her. His head tilted in a questioning way.

"Welcome back." Her fingers unlock from around his but he does not follow suit. Instead he looks up into the light feeling the sun caress him. He smiles a little and she squeezes feeling more human and alive that she had since the decade the world turned on her and her kind.

This vampire had brought her back her humanity and it was her desire to bring out his for as long as this world lasted.


End file.
